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Halo: Soldier of Destiny Chapter.01 -- The Unsung Hero
Posted By: GGrievous<shagohad808@yahoo.com>
Date: 22 January 2006, 7:18 am
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The events that unfolded on the ring-world Halo is now stuff of legends. They the tales of the Master Chief and his triumph over the monstrosity known only as the Flood. He is praised as the hero of the UNSC who has saved the entire human race. And he rightfully bears that title.
But the entire story does not belong to the soldier known as Spartan-117. This is the tale of the unsung warrior, the second hero of the Pillar of Autumn. The tale of the events that took place on Halo that would forever shape his destiny.
0118 Hours (Ship's Time), September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
UNSC Cruiser Pillar of Autumn, Location Unknown
The deck of the Halcyon-class cruiser, the Pillar of Autumn shuddered as the massive hulk exited slipspace. Strobes of light danced over the hull as the warp in space-time closed. Massive scars were visible on the Autumn's hull. Large sections of the ship's Titanium-A armor had been boiled away by plasma torpedoes. The once proud UNSC capital ship was a wreck.
The Autumn had just barely escaped the battle--and destruction--of the planet Reach. It was one of the few warships still mobile that hadn't been destroyed by the massive Covenant armada.
As the great battleship cruised through space, a lone marine sat in the ship's crews quarters. Corporal Zachary Thompson stared out the starboard view port. He was rather tall, and wore a jet black uniform. His hair was short and dark, and slightly spiked upward.
As he looked out amongst the stars, he sat reminiscing on the events that took place high above Reach's surface.
"How in the world could our fleet have been defeated so easily?" he pondered. "We had over a hundred warships, and nearly all of them were turned to scrap during the battle."
If you could call it a battle anyway. The human's had been fighting the alien race known as the Covenant for over twenty-five years. And they were no closer to winning than the day the Covenant had declared their holy war on the humans. In fact, the humans were on the brink of losing.
Covenant ships were light years ahead of UNSC ships in terms of combat capability. Their plasma torpedoes and pulse lasers could burn away the Grade-A titanium armor of a destroyer in seconds. And they're shields repelled most conventional UNSC ship-based weaponry. Not only that, but the Covenant fleet had outnumbered the UNSC three to one.
The battle of Reach hadn't been a battle. It had been a slaughter.
Even with the support of the twenty orbital Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, or MAC guns orbiting the planet, the Covenant had overwhelmed the UNSC fleet. Then they glassed the planet, bombarding it with their plasma torpedoes.
The Pillar of Autumn hadn't stayed to enjoy the show. They made a randomized jump, to ensure that they wouldn't lead the Covenant to any more of their outposts. And now here they were, drifting dead in an unknown system.
"Hey Zack, what're you doing in here?" The voice pulled Zack out of his recollection.
Zack turned to see his friend Jake O'Conner standing in the doorway. He'd met him on reach, and they'd become good friends. Jake could be best described as happy-go-lucky when it came to battle. He was a short and stocky with sandy red hair.
Zack shrugged. "Nothing. Just thinking."
"Well, everyone's gathering at the mess hall," said Jake. "Wanna join us?"
Zack shook his head. "Nah, I think I'll just stay here for a while.
"Suit yourself," said Jake, and he took off down the hallway.
Zack returned his gaze to the view port, and stared absentmindedly into the blackness of space. He didn't have many friends. Zack had been part of a special unit created by the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI, which they had called Destiny Squad. He had four team mates, Sean, Andy, Rick, and Jonas, and they had all been like his family.
As part of the squad, they were each given special weapons, and the prototype Phoenix battle armor, a descendant of the MJOLNIR battle armor used by the Spartans. For a while, they're squad had been invincible, taking on every mission given to them and succeeding.
That was until the battle of Sigma Octanus IV. When the Covenant attacked the planet, they had deployed hundreds of their troops into the capital city Côte d' Azur. Destiny Squad had been sent to rescue civilians being held in the city.
Sean, Andy, Rick, and Jonas were all killed in action. Only Zack managed to escape alive.
The incident left Zack torn. The squad had been his only real family. Zack didn't have any memory of his past before the squad. The earliest memory he had was waking up in some sort of ONI medical facility on Reach. When Zack had inquired about it, they had told him that he was being treated for injuries he sustained in battle, and had gotten a severe case of amnesia because of them. Zack had doubted their claim however. Nothing that ONI was involved in was ever as simple as that.
His suspicions were raised further when he was assigned to Destiny Squad. He and all of his other teammates had the exact same condition. None of them could remember anything beyond being assigned to the squad. They had considered taking the issue up to the brass of the UNSC.
But in the end, they all decided that finding out what had happened would have to wait. For now, fighting the Covenant was all that mattered.
Besides, for some reason when they were put back into the field, they found that they were stronger, faster, and more quick-witted than they had been before. They knew it couldn't be a coincidence. But no one had any complaints. They just went with the flow for many months.
"Now I'm the only one who will ever find out", Zack thought ruefully. After Côte d' Azur, he was stationed back at Reach. He was then assigned to the Pillar of Autumn, as a part of the ship's special mission. The rest, is history.
Zack sighed. "Now I really don't have any home to go back to either," he said to himself.
Suddenly, a great rumble shook the entire ship, which caught Zack's full attention. It could only mean one thing.
The Autumn's engines had accelerated to combat speed.
Then the voice of Captain Jacob Keyes came over the intercom. "All hands to battle stations. Prepare to repel borders."
Zack shot up and sprinted to the weapons hold without hesitation. But as he hurried along the corridor, he began to ponder upon the Captains orders. The Covenant rarely, if ever, attempted to board human ships. They usually just burned them into giant hulks of molten slag with their plasma torpedoes. Why the sudden change of heart? Zack thought.
He pushed the thought out of his mind. He had to focus on the here and now. Best to leave alien ethics to the spooks at ONI.
Zack skidded to a halt at the weapons hold. Jake and a few other marines were already there. "Hurry up man!" said Jake when he saw Zack. "Those Covenant freaks will be here any minute!"
"You don't gotta tell me twice," Zack calmly replied. He never got excited or nervous when it came to battle. He always kept his cool, collectively carrying out his objectives to the best of his abilities. The other members of Destiny squad had been the same way. It was as if they were born fighting machines.
He rushed to a locker in the corner and opened the coded lock. Inside was his suit of Phoenix armor. It was ash colored, and made up of several sections that fit across his entire body, as well as a jet black helmet with a visor that covered his eyes. He quickly secured the torso, leg, and arm sections to his body. Finally, he strapped on his helmet.
Unfortunately, there was only one left. SPARTAN 117, only known as the Master Chief. All the others had been killed on Reach. The Chief was the last of his kind. He had lost all his family back on the planets surface.
Zack sympathized with him. He had lost his brothers too.
His Heads-Up Display came online. His ammo counter and motion tracker flashed in front of his eyes as the
He strode over to the weapons rack and grabbed his favorite weapon, the M90 8-Guage shotgun. While the weapon wasn't very accurate at long range, it still produced an astonishing amount of fire-power that Zack couldn't help but admire. He pumped a round into the chamber, and slung it across his back. Finally, he grabbed an MA5B Assault Rifle, and slid a fresh clip into it with a satisfying clack. He secured several cartridges of ammunition for all the weapons to his belt, as well as four M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenades.
Zack felt the ship rumble and heard a muffled explosion as he sprinted out the door. The Pillar of Autumn had engaged the Covenant vessels. He would have to move fast.
As he surged down the hallway, he happened to glance outside a nearby view port, and what he saw made him stop dead in his tracks.
Outside, Zack could see a massive red gas-giant planet. And orbiting it, was a large metal ring.
The ring had to be at least ten-thousand kilometers in diameter. But it's size wasn't what was most impressive. Along the rings inner surface, Zack could see sapphire oceans, and expanses of snowcapped mountains. There were crystal glaciers, emerald forests, rugged deserts, and immense valleys. Streaks of white clouds were spread out over the ring.
Zack couldn't believe that such an environment could exist on an artificial structure. He might as well have been looking at planet Earth itself.
Zack stared at the spectacle in awe. He knew that no human could have built the massive structure he saw before him. And it sure didn't look like anything the Covenant would ever build. They seemed more intent on destroying ecosystems, rather than creating them.
"So if we didn't build it, and the Covenant didn't build it," Zack thought, "then who did?"
Then he noticed something else. A group of large objects, though not as large as the ring, slowly drifted towards the Pillar of Autumn. Each were about half a kilometer long. Most people would have mistaken them for space junk. But Zack knew better. The objects moved about in a synchronous fashion. And he noticed one of the objects shine as the sun glared upon it's metal hull.
They were Covenant ships. Shaped like teardrops, their hulls were lavender color, and made up of three bulbous sections. Their sides bristled with plasma conduits and pulse laser turrets.
They were also moving towards the Autumn at considerable speed.
Zack pulled his gaze away from the sight, and rushed down the hallway, anticipation growing with every step. Finally, I'll get to kill some more of those Covenant bastards.
Ahead, Zack saw marines gathering at a closed blast door at the end of the hallway, taking cover behind crates and alcoves. Zack took position directly across from the door. He wanted those alien scum to meet their death, face to face.
Jake was propped against a container nearby. "Glad you made it, we thought we were going to have to start without you," he called out.
Zack gave a rare smile. "You kidding? Wouldn't miss it for the world," he replied.
Just then, a tiny white flare appeared on the blast door. "Heads up! Their coming through!" shouted a Sergeant among the group.
A few of the marines around him tensed as they readied their weapons. The flare spread across the seam of he closed doors as the Covenant burned through the other side. Zack aimed straight into the fire.
Suddenly, the door exploded. Bursts of blue and green plasma rained though the opening. Grenades flew from both sides, and Zack smiled as his rifle flared and sprayed bullets into the onslaught.
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